In fact, Brenneman, who was scheduled to fight Kyle Noke on
the Sept. 1 card, also let Jones know when his rent is due and
where Jones could send the check Brenneman would have received for
competing.

“That was pure frustration,” Brenneman told the
Sherdog Radio Network’s “Rewind” show. “Mad? No, not
necessarily. Frustrated? Yes. I took everything into consideration.
I’m not one of the people who say, ‘Jon Jones said no. He screwed
everything up.’ It was more than that. I kind of looked at the
situation, looked at all the details, understood why he said no and
then made my opinion known, then voiced my frustration. It wasn’t
just the naive, ‘Oh, it’s all his fault.’ It was more of an
educated, calculated frustration.”

Jones had been set to fight Dan
Henderson in the main event, but when Henderson withdrew due to
an injury and Jones declined a short-notice bout against Chael
Sonnen, the UFC cancelled the show.

“Even my wife was like, ‘Why are you mad at him? Why aren’t you mad
at Dana White?’” Brenneman said. “But to me, from a fighter’s
standpoint, taking into consideration what I know -- and granted, I
don’t know everything -- but what I know from the situation, he’s
been training for a fight. He’s ready to go. He’s the champion. He
was offered a challenger who was a weight class below him. If
[Sonnen’s] been training, he’s been training for maybe 10 days. ...
Based on that, the surrounding details, I can say I would have
taken the fight. I can say that a lot of other people would have
taken the fight as well.”

In June 2011, Brenneman accepted a fight against Rick Story on
one day’s notice. Brenneman won, too, stunning the welterweight
contender via unanimous decision. While Jones was in a somewhat
different position as a champion, Brenneman believes that was even
more reason for him to fight Sonnen.

“If you’re champ, you’re the champ,” Brenneman said. “That means,
yeah, you probably make the most money, but it also means that
you’re the face of Nike, you drive a Bentley, you are the face of
the UFC. Those are big things. I don’t get that. None of my
immediate friends get that. Frankie
Edgar, who’s been champ, forever one of the best fighters in
the UFC, he didn’t get that. It’s those kind of extra bonuses that
then kind of put you in a position where you might have to do
things that you don’t necessarily want to do.”

Brenneman’s bout against Noke has since been moved to UFC
152 on Sept. 22. He’ll get his fight purse then, but it won’t
cover all of the expenses resulting from UFC 151 being
cancelled.

“We have to cover my wife’s flight,” Brenneman said. “All these
airlines offer a ‘rebate,’ but then there’s a
several-hundred-dollar activation fee for the rebate. We have to
cover those costs. I know my brother and my parents, my aunt and
uncle, they all lost out on money and that’s money that I will give
them. I’m sure they will tell me, ‘No, don’t give it to me,’ but
that’s several hundred, maybe a thousand bucks. My one corner, he
purchased his flight. Got to change that to Canada, got to cover
that difference. So yeah, there’s a lot of stuff, not to mention
I’m primed. I’m physically primed. I’m ready to fight Sept. 1 and I
can’t do that.”

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